


Polar Night

by Arazsya



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Holiday Cheer Event, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: Edward Keystone is not afraid of the dark.





	Polar Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sea-Glass (PJ_Marvell)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJ_Marvell/gifts).



> Written for the Holiday Cheer event - December Twenty-First, Candles. Pairing exists to spite Sir Bertrand MacGuffingham, but accidentally started having feelings about it (help me). Warning for a... lack of cheer.

Edward Keystone is not afraid of the dark. That was the last thing that he’d said before he’d left to fetch more firewood, closing the door firmly over Tjelvar’s protests, and he’d said it more than once, as though that was supposed to make it more true.

Tjelvar doesn’t disbelieve him, exactly. But his actual question had been a rather less specific _are you all right?_ , and they already have far more firewood than they’re going to need, unless they end up stuck there all winter (and if they do, something else will probably get them before the cold does). It hadn’t been a large cabin to begin with – one room, that someone trying to sell it would have described as _cosy_ , a tiny bathroom sequestered off to the side, only the bare minimum of stove, a bed that’s only half the size of its blankets, and a narrow seat so close to the hearth that Tjelvar’s not sure it’s entirely safe – and what little space there had been is now taken up with logs, stacked on every spare surface and patch of floor.

When they had arrived, three days ago, Tjelvar’s mind so dull with exhaustion that he’d managed to sleep even as Edward had paced and paced and _paced_ , there had only been enough to fill the basket beside the hearth. He’s been excusing himself to collect it every time that Tjelvar either tries to talk to him, or, presumably, looks like he’s about to.

Edward Keystone might not be afraid of the dark, but the polar night is no place for a paladin of the sun god. Tjelvar should have realised that, should have thought, should never have brought him here, but he’d refused to let Tjelvar go into hiding alone, and Tjelvar’s head had been throbbing too much for him to put up much of a fight.

Six months ago, he would have laughed at the idea of worrying about Edward, would have split his sides at the idea of willingly even seeing him again. But then there had been that business in Cairo with the Heart of Aphrodite, and the authorities had looked at how close they had come to losing one of the most powerful artefacts in existence, and panicked. A number of decrees had been made, among them, one stating that, in order to be sanctioned, archaeological expeditions would have to involve at least one paladin. All protests, from both the archaeological communities and the churches, including an open letter from one excavation that Tjelvar still has a copy of somewhere on his desk, that goes to great pains to thank the commission for finally providing their potsherds the protection they deserve, before it raises concerns about the delays for in-progress digs and about the presences of untrained people on-site, had been ignored.

Tjelvar, unable to forget how it had felt to have an ally’s sword in his skin, had just made his application, and waited.

On the day that it had been filled, he’d been attempting his third read-through of a letter from Cambridge, from someone who was clearly having as much difficulty understanding the situation as he was, explaining that the Circlet of Command had been removed from their care by a _dog_. The knocking had started up somewhere around the third paragraph, and he’d let the letter drop from his hand, disgusted.

When he’d answered the door, and seen Edward there, it had been at the point where it might as well be him. Edward had smiled broadly, greeted him like an old friend, and he’d been there ever since. The Church of Apollo had been only too happy to _repeatedly_ assign him to Tjelvar, and Tjelvar’s frustration at becoming his unofficial minder had lasted right up until he’d tried working with another paladin, this one one of Artemis’, and he’d discovered that not only had Edward really picked up quite a bit about proper archaeological practice, but that he also didn’t treat the excavation as something getting between him and more important godly duties.

He hadn’t realised that irritation had turned to grudging acceptance to affection until he’d seen Edward drop, the hilt of a dagger sticking out from the gaps in his armour, and felt half his internal organs go with him.

Maybe that was why he hadn’t fought harder to make him stay behind, hadn’t tried to sneak away on his own. Still selfish, still foolish, because he can count the number of people that he trusts on half a hand, and he should have made Edward remain in place, be the one to contact him when the situation’s been resolved, rather than a head of antiquities whom Tjelvar can’t be sure is any less likely to try and kill them as the rest of them. But he’d wanted to keep him close, see to it himself that he wouldn’t get hurt again.

Not that that helps him now, half an hour gone since Edward had left, alone. He shouldn’t be. He’s not used to the landscape, can’t see in the dark as well as Tjelvar can, but, even if he hadn’t been trying to be alone, he would have insisted that Tjelvar stay here, that he wasn’t up to trying to gather firewood. And he would have been right.

Tjelvar drags himself to his feet, and awkwardly shunts another log into the fire, one-handed. Lights a candle from it, and sets it in one of the tiny windows. Its light doesn’t fall very far, outside, but he hopes that it at least makes the cabin a little more visible. The flame dances, reflected, in the thing that’s embedded itself in his skin, and he turns his arm so that he can’t see it.

That had been his fault, too. He’d been so _stupid_ – the number of times he’d lectured Edward about not touching the artefacts before they’ve studied them thoroughly ( _no, Eddie, just saying that it’s not evil does_ not _count as thorough_ ), and he’d gone and done exactly the same thing himself.

There had been extenuating circumstances, he supposes. That was the easiest thing to call it, that moment when the others had seen the artefact, sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the tomb where the coffin should have been, a stone the size of a pigeon’s egg, its intricately cut surface throwing their torchlight in dazzling glimmers across the room. It wasn’t something they had been expecting to find. There had been a second where they had all just stared at it, the last few members of the dig team filling out into the chamber behind them, as Tjelvar himself had approached it.

Then there had been shouting, loud enough that dust had started to trickle down from the roof, and he’d turned just in time to see Edward fall. They’d gone for him first, because he was there to protect the dig, and because that armour was a declaration that he would not be swayed. One of them had been screaming at him that if he gave them the stone, they’d let them both leave alive, and Tjelvar had hardly heard them.

Tjelvar had reached for it, with no idea what he’d intended to do with it, his palm had found its surface, and then his arm had caught fire. He’d come back to himself on his knees, grasping at his wrist with his other hand, staring down at the place where the stone had fused itself with his skin, only distracted from it by the flash of Edward’s morning star. By the time that he’d made it to his feet, Edward had already struggled over to him and was hauling him away. He’d been shouting at him, desperate and urgent, but Tjelvar’s head had been swimming with the patterns of the stone, and the only clarity he remembers is a dark spill of red over the sun emblem on Edward’s breastplate.

Tjelvar lights another candle, against the fact that he still doesn’t know whether or not that had been Edward’s blood. It had certainly been his, later, after they had reported the incident. Edward had been sleeping, but Tjelvar had been trying to scratch the stone out of his skin. Edward had refused to try and cut it out of him, but the man with the knife who had come to them that night had had no such qualms. He would have taken the whole hand, the blade already red to the hilt.

Another candle, for the time they had spent struggling over the knife, Tjelvar unable to keep his eyes from darting off sideways, trying to tell whether Edward was even still alive. Another for struggling to wake him, so that he could heal himself. Another for the man, acting under orders, asking if Tjelvar had really thought that one paladin would be enough. Another for the captain of the guard who’d come to take him away, watching Tjelvar’s hand for the stone, even when he’d closed his first around it. He lines the windows with them, any surface not already covered in flammable materials, turns the ever-present gloom into daylight.

Edward still doesn’t come back. Tjelvar moves to the window to watch for him, and his chest tightens as there’s a blurring past the glass, a thick, heavy rush of snow. He squints out into it, scraping a hand against the pane in an attempt to clear the mist, and for a moment, he thinks that he can make out a figure, just at the edge of his vision, but then they’re lost in another flurry of flakes.

They had been far, far too tall to be Edward. Tjelvar curses, his neck prickling, wipes at the glass again, but there’s nothing. Just his eyes, he hopes. It hadn’t been a normal figure, the limbs distorted. He couldn’t have seen anything. Not really.

He goes to pull his coat on anyway, wincing as he tries to manoeuvre the sleeve over his forearm. The stone’s moved three inches from where it had started, creeping up, and it bulges out, scraping uncomfortably against his clothes.

The door wrenches inwards before he can get to it, and Edward stumbles inside in a rush of cold air that extinguishes some of the nearby candles. He’s holding yet more firewood, that he deposits on the nearest pile, like it’s been any other gathering trip. It hasn’t been. He’s shivering, the most violent tremors that Tjelvar has ever seen on him, face drawn.

“Eddie,” Tjelvar snaps, fear settling easily into anger. “Where have you _been_? You could have died out there, with the weather like this. Do _not_ go out there again.”

Edward opens his mouth to respond, but as he turns towards Tjelvar, he catches sight of the candles, their gentle light flickering across his face. His expression softens, and Tjelvar can feel his doing the same. He covers it, gesturing for Edward to pull the bar back across the door, as he busies himself relighting the candles that had gone out.

“Did you see anyone out there?” Tjelvar asks, shuffling him out of the way, trying to check that the door is properly secured.

“No,” Edward says, distracted, stretching out one hand to cup it over the flame of the nearest candle. “Why?”

“I thought I saw something,” Tjelvar says, giving the bar an experimental rattle, gripping it hard enough that he can feel the splinters going in. “From the window.”

Edward’s arm drops back to his side. “Evil?” he asks, his focus entirely on Tjelvar now. It stays there, for a moment, before he’s reaching for his morning star. “I’ll deal with-”

“Stay where you are,” Tjelvar orders, turning back to face him, planting his feet. “Look, it was probably nothing, and you-”

“I’ll sort it,” Edward declares, gently starting to move him aside. Tjelvar’s arms snap up to stop him, and one jars against Edward’s armour, sending lines of pain up towards his shoulder. He hisses, trying to wrench it back, but Edward has already dropped the morning star in favour of gripping Tjelvar’s hand with his, peeling back the sleeve to expose the stone.

“Is it hurting?” he demands, and there’s a flare of warmth from his hands before Tjelvar can even open his mouth to protest. It spreads through his skin, flooding it with a sensation like summer, the throbbing vanishing like dew under remembered sunlight.

“Edward, you need to stop _doing that_ ,” Tjelvar growls, yanking his hand back, and ignoring Edward’s wounded glance. “If they find us-”

“You said they wouldn’t,” Edward reminds him. “You said that’s why we’re here.”

“And _you_ refused not to come in case they _did_ ,” Tjelvar retorts. “And besides, it’s not that bad. I’ll let you know if it gets worse. In the meantime, _stop_. Sit down, warm up.” He turns his back, so that Edward won’t see him struggling with the coat and try to help.

Edward does as he’s told, but he still takes the side of the seat that puts him alongside Tjelvar’s arm, watches it too carefully, when Tjelvar settles next to him.

“It’s getting further up,” he says, and his fingers ghost through the air above it, as though he wants to touch but can’t quite dare. Wants to try and _heal_ , but Tjelvar’s orders will stick with him another few hours at least, before they’re overcome by the need to help. “Tjelvar-”

“Slowly,” Tjelvar stresses, irritably pulling a blanket around his shoulders, hiding it from view. “I expect we’ll have word before it gets anywhere vital.” And then they’ll be back to watching everyone they meet, waiting for them to draw their weapons.

“I’m sorry,” Edward says, turning his face away.

“What?” Tjelvar demands, the edges of the blanket slipping through his fingers.

“I should have stopped them,” Edward says. “It’s why I’m on the expeditions, isn’t it? I should have known they were going to do evil, and I should have fixed it.”

Tjelvar sighs, reaches over to pat awkwardly at Edward’s hand – his skin is still far too cold, and he smells faintly of pine needles.

“They weren’t inherently evil,” he says. “Just people who wanted more money. You couldn’t have known. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

Edward looks back around at him, frowning. “I don’t understand,” he says. “You’ve got the stone, you did what you were supposed to do.”

“I’ve _got the stone_ ,” Tjelvar mimics, and he can’t keep the edge out of his tone. “I didn’t think. You got hurt – you do realise that if you weren’t a paladin, you’d be dead? And then I dragged you all the way out here-”

“I came out here because I had to.” Edward’s voice is so sure, so stubborn, that Tjelvar lets out a breath of laughter.

“I think your obligation to the excavation ended when-”

“Not for the excavation.” Edward’s pronouncing his words with undue care now, his gaze fixed somewhere to the left of Tjelvar’s head. “You.”

“Oh.” It’s all that Tjelvar can manage in that second, his mind stalling out, checking and cross-checking, trying to decide if he’s heard what he was supposed to hear, what he wants to hear, or is just taking too much from a simple sentence.

Edward pushes himself to his feet again, the motion a faint drift of pine and roses over Tjelvar’s senses.

“ _Edward_ ,” Tjelvar tries, but he has no idea where to go from there, thoughts stuttering out before he can convince them out of his mouth, and the moment passes. He’s left sitting by himself, remembering that he’d chosen to flee _here_ because he’d wanted Edward to see where he had come from. That he’d wanted to show him the aurora, to stand with him under a river of colour, but the sky and the circumstances are wrong.

Edward takes up a seat in the window, his back to Tjelvar, presumably watching for the thing that Tjelvar had said he’d seen, though he likely can’t see beyond the mirror image of the room in the window, the candles blazing in the pane like a dozen captive suns.

Tjelvar meets his reflection’s eyes, and looks away, as his arm starts to itch again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Beneath a River of Colour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162378) by [Sea-Glass (PJ_Marvell)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJ_Marvell/pseuds/Sea-Glass)




End file.
